Subject: Re: namedroppers mismanagement, continued

From: "Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 22:08:10 -0500 (EST)

On Fri, 29 Nov 2002, Stephen Sprunk wrote:

> Thus spake "Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law"
> <[email-masked]>
> > [cc's trimmed]
> >
> > Regardless of the specifics of this case, I think a good rule would be to
> > say that all bounced messages on any IETF list MUST be archived on a
> > separate 'bounced' list.  To whom would this suggestion best be directed?
> 
> 1.  Many WG lists themselves aren't archived, but you want to force bounced
> messages to be?  Are you ready to pay for this?
> 

I have just run into an example of this (POISSON) when I was unable to
find the archive.  I was surprised -- and puzzled.  Surely the storage
costs for archiving ALL IETF lists, especially in their spamless form,
can't be that great?  What sort of volume are we talking about ?

> 2.  The volume of spam in a bounced-messages archive would quickly change
> your mind.

Here, you could well be right.  But would that have to be held beyond the
life of the group?  

> 
> 3.  All of this would be easily solved by someone (e.g. IETF secretariat)
> providing list service for all WGs with a consistent policy.

Agree.  But I'd like to also suggest that part of this policy is keeping
the (unspammed) archives around, if only for the sake of people (like me)
who try sometimes to write the history of decision-making in some of these
areas.

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A. Michael Froomkin   |    Professor of Law    |   [email-masked]
U. Miami School of Law, P.O. Box 248087, Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA
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---

From: "Stephen Sprunk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 11:28:57 -0600

> can't be that great?  What sort of volume are we talking about ?

Depends on the list; the main IETF list is over 1.5MB/mo in my personal
archives.  Given that the WG lists are maintained by volunteers, it would be
a significant cost to provide several years of archives out of the list
maintainer's pocket, especially when you add in the trolls and spam which
are not part of the list's relevant content.

> > 2.  The volume of spam in a bounced-messages archive would quickly
> > change your mind.
>

If you consider the bounced messages to be legitimate content worth
archiving, then their archive should be kept as long as the non-bounced
archive.

> the (unspammed) archives around, if only for the sake of people (like
> me) who try sometimes to write the history of decision-making in some
> of these areas.

I agree.  I've petitioned several times for centralized lists and archives,
and have even offerred to provide them free to all WGs, but so far the IESG
has taken no action.  My guess is there's nobody we all trust to be such a
central manager -- right now one of the IESG members is being accused of
list mismanagement.

S

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From: "Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 13:42:53 -0500 (EST)

I would think that archive.org would do the job if we asked them to?

Else, this is a natural for a grant...